More Students Opting For Mechanical Compared To Computer Science In Engineering Courses – AICTE

In March in this year, we had reported that due increase in automation in the IT sector, top 5 IT forms recruited 24% less employees in 2015. What we didn’t anticipate was the ripple effect of the automation phenomenon in an important sector – education.

As per All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), enrollment and intake for mechanical engineering has gradually and steadily overtaken demand for computer science engineering in India, and this has been going on since last 4 years.

This means that technical education in India is witnessing a massive transformation from IT to non-IT field, and this can have some serious effect on the job market in India.

As the demand for IT courses in engineering is gradually decreasing, jobs offers from mechanical disciplines are steadily increasing.

Mechanical Vs Computer Science Engineering

As per AICTE data, total of 5,34,199 students enrolled for mechanical engineering in 2013-14, compared to 3,23,697 enrollments for computer science in the same year.

This is the highest gap witnessed by AICTE vis-a-vis mechanical and computer science courses in engineering.

In fact, between 2012-13 to 2015-16, intake of mechanical engineering students have gone up by 2 lakh, all over the nation.

Interestingly, as the number of students in mechanical engineering has increased, job offers has subsequently increased as well. In 2012-13, total of 95,000 job offers were given to mechanical engineering graduates, which swelled to 1,39,162 for 2015-16 academic session.

Why Computer Science Demand Is Decreasing?

This can be a small reason, which came into effect since last one year.

However, the main reason seems simple demand and supply rule: There are more IT professionals in India, compared to the demand, and this is shifting the base of technical education in India.

A senior official from the HRD Ministry said, “The IT industry was booming sometime back and more and more students were pursuing computer science but now the industry is saturated. There is more supply than demand of IT professionals in the industry which is the reason that students are moving towards other fields of engineering..”

As an example, he said that if 100 people are required to create a software, only three are required to maintain it, thereby squashing demand for IT experts.

Besides, automation is also seen as a major influence in shifting the demand of IT experts. Automation, robotics and technology can potentially kill 5.1 million jobs all over the world by 2020, and World Bank has just confirmed this fact. The jobs which are being automated as a fast pace right now belong to IT sector itself, although mechanical jobs can also get affected, but the rate is slower.

Do share your views on the transformation of technical education in India; and the shift from computer science to mechanical engineering, by commenting right here!

Mohul keenly observes the nuances of Indian startup world; and tries to demystify the secrets behind Technology, Marketing, Mobile and Internet. He is a Writer by passion, Marketer by choice and Entrepreneur by compulsion. Follow him on Twitter here: @_mohul